Audience measurement entities often collect demographic information (e.g., age, race, gender, income, education level, etc.) of a population by having members of the population complete a survey (e.g., door-to-door, mail, online, etc.).
Some audience measurement entities or other entities also collect behavioral data (e.g., viewing data and/or tuning data for television programming, advertising, movies, etc.) from households of a population (e.g., upon obtaining consent from the households). In some instances, the audience measurement entities collect viewing data (e.g., data related to media viewed by a member of the household) from each member of the household. To identify which household member is exposed to displayed media, the audience measurement entities often employ meters (e.g., personal people meters) to monitor the members and/or media presentation devices (e.g., televisions) of the household.
Some audience measurement entities may also collect tuning data from media presentation device (e.g., set-top boxes) of households of a population. For example, the media presentation device may record tuning data that is associated with tuning events of the media presentation device (e.g., turning a set-top box on or off, changing a channel, changing a volume), and the audience measurement entities may associate the collected tuning data with information associated with the household at which the media presentation device is located.
The figures are not to scale. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers will be used throughout the drawing(s) and accompanying written description to refer to the same or like parts.